_April 20th._
... Very early yesterday morning Yzore was carried away under a covering
of quick-lime: the children do not know; Manm-Robert took heed they
should not see. They have been told their mother has been taken to the
country to get well,--that the doctor will bring her back soon.... All
the furniture is to be sold at auction to pay the debts;--the landlord
was patient, he waited four months; the doctor was kindly: but now these
must have their due. Everything will be bidden off, except the chapelle,
with its Virgin and angels of porcelain: _yo pa ka pè venne Bon-Dié_
(the things of the Good-God must not be sold). And Manm-Robert will take
care of the little ones.
The bed--a relic of former good-fortune,--a great Martinique bed of
carved heavy native wood,--_a lit-à-bateau_ (boat-bed), so called
because shaped almost like a barge, perhaps--will surely bring three
hundred francs;--the armoire, with its mirror doors, not less than two
hundred and fifty. There is little else of value: the whole will not
fetch enough to pay all the dead owes.